In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

William Lambert (Cricketer)
1779 – 19 April 1851

William Lambert

William Lambert (Cricketer) was an English professional cricketer in the first two decades of the 19th century. Playing mainly for Surrey from 1801, but also for MCC and some other county teams, Lambert was a right-hand batsman and an underarm slow bowler.

Lambert was described by Arthur Haygarth as “one of the most successful cricketers that has ever yet appeared, excelling as he did in batting, bowling, fielding, keeping wicket, and also single wicket playing”.

His main claim to fame is that he is the first player known to have scored two centuries in the same match, though others such as Tom Walker had come close. Lambert achieved this in the Sussex v Epsom match at Lord’s between 2 and 6 July 1817. Curiously, this turned out to be his final first-class appearance because he was banned for life soon afterwards following allegations of match-fixing in an earlier game.

Although he was a professional, Lambert played for the Gentlemen in the inaugural and second Gentlemen v Players matches in 1806. He and William Beldham were selected for the Players but, to try to balance the two teams, they were given men for the Gentlemen in the first match. In the second match, Beldham returned to the Players but Lambert was again a given man for the Gentlemen.

Lambert played in a great many matches that were not first-class including numerous single wicket events. Indeed, he was outstanding in the latter form of the game.

His first-class record from 1801 to 1817 has 64 matches. He played 114 innings (5 not out) and scored 3,014 runs at 27.65 with a highest score of 157 in the Sussex v Epsom game. He scored 4 centuries and 16 fifties.

He was a strong fielder and an occasional wicket-keeper, taking 61 catches and 26 stumpings.
Lambert’s bowling analyses are incomplete and we only know of his bowled victims. He took 187 wickets (bowled only) and his best tally was 6 in one innings.

Two Peas in a Pod has now passed the exclusivity to Amazon test and is available in wider release, electronically (digitally) for other readers now. We sold a few copies on Amazon but nothing to warrant an exclusivity period. Amazon is too big and too full of itself.

$3.99 for an electronic copy. The Trade Paperback, due to publishing costs and the cut that Amazon takes continue to see a Trade Paperback costing $15.99 (The much hyped royalties that we writers are supposed to get is nowhere near what the news reports say. Most of that price is taken by Amazon.)

Love is something that can not be fostered by deceit even should one’s eyes betray one’s heart.

Two brothers that are so close in appearance that only a handful have ever been able to tell them apart. The Earl of Kent, Percival Francis Michael Coldwell is only older than his brother, Peregrine Maxim Frederick Coldwell by 17 minutes. They may have looked as each other, but that masked how they were truthfully quite opposite to one another.

For Percy, his personality was one that he was quite comfortable with and more than happy to let Perry be of a serious nature. At least until he met Veronica Hamilton, the daughter of Baron Hamilton of Leith. She was only interested in a man who was serious.

Once more, Peregrine is obliged to help his older brother by taking his place, that the Earl may woo the young lady who has captured his heart. That is, until there is one who captures Peregrine’s heart as well.

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

John Crewe 1st Baron Crewe
27 September 1742 – 28 April 1829

John Crewe

John Crewe 1st Baron Crewe of Crewe Hall in Cheshire, was a British politician. He is chiefly remembered for his sponsorship of Crewe’s Act of 1782, which barred customs officers and post office officials from voting.

Crewe was the eldest son of John Crewe, Member of Parliament for Cheshire between 1734 and 1753, and grandson of John Offley Crewe who had also held the same seat before him. In 1764 he was chosen High Sheriff of Cheshire, and he entered parliament at a by-election in 1765 as Whig member for Stafford; but at the next general election, in 1768, he was returned unopposed for Cheshire, which he represented for the next 34 years. He was never opposed for Cheshire, and presumably was highly regarded locally : the Dictionary of National Biography records that he was “an enlightened agriculturalist and a good landlord”.

In the factional politics of the Whig Party, Crewe was initially a friend and follower of the Duke of Grafton, but later became a particular supporter of Charles James Fox, apparently subsidising him to the tune of £1200 a year. After Fox’s resignation from office in 1782, the incoming administration considered offering Crewe some governmental office to secure his support, but were told that his only ambition was for a peerage. He remained loyal to Fox, and in February 1784 was on Fox’s list of new peers to be made should he return to office as he hoped. Fox did not succeed in returning to power at that point, but eventually – four years after his retirement from the Commons – Crewe was rewarded with the desired peerage when Fox finally returned to office in 1806. Crewe was created Baron Crewe on 25 February 1806.

Crewe rarely spoke in the House of Commons, and more than half his recorded contributions concerned a single measure, the Parliament Act of 1782 which thereafter bore his name. This was an attempt to curb a particular source of corruption in elections: in many of the rotten boroughs of the period, only a few votes were needed to swing elections, and it was common for those who held the power of appointment to various well-paid official posts to reserve these for voters in return for co-operation at election time. The scale of the problem may be judged by Prime Minister Rockingham’s statement that 11,500 officers of customs and excise were electors, and that 70 Commons seats were decided chiefly by such votes. William Dowdeswell had attempted in 1770 to put a stop to this practice by preventing officers of the Custom, Excise and Post Office from voting. This measure had not reached the statute book, but Crewe introduced a bill with the same object in 1780 and again in 1781, succeeding on the latter occasion in passing it into law.

Unfortunately, the new regulation was easily evaded, as the power of patronage was simply shifted to offer lucrative offices to the voters’ relatives instead of to the voters themselves.

He married Frances Anne Greville in 1766, and they had two children who survived infancy: a son, John, who succeeded him in the peerage, and a daughter, Emma, who married Foster Cunliffe. Lord Crewe died in 1829.

The stories of Humphrey and Gwendolyn. Published separately in: A Trolling we Will Go, Trolling Down to Old Mah Wee and Trollings Pass and Present.

These are the tales of how a simple Woodcutter and an overly educated girl help save the kingdom without a king from an ancient evil. Long forgotten is the way to fight the Trolls.

Beasts that breed faster than rabbits it seems, and when they decide to migrate to the lands of humans, their seeming invulnerability spell doom for all in the kingdom of Torahn. Not only Torahn but all the human kingdoms that border the great mountains that divide the continent.

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In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Mary Anne Burges
6 December 1763 – 10 August 1813

Mary Anne Burges was born in Edinburgh in 1763 to George and Anne Burges. Her father had distinguished himself at the Battle of Culloden by capturing the standard of Charles Edward Stewart and was later deputy paymaster in Gibraltar; Her mother, Anne Whichnour Somerville, was the daughter of James Somerville, 13th Lord Somerville.

Burges was a gifted linguist speaking five to seven European languages. Her particular interests were geology and botany. Her group of friends included Anne Elliot, Jean-André Deluc and the diarist Elizabeth Simcoe. She is said to have been a major contributor to Deluc’s last book and she sketched her friend Elizabeth Simcoe, as well as illustrating her own botanical descriptions.

She is known for anonymously publishing a sequel to John Bunyan’s best seller, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Her book was called The Progress of the Pilgrim Good-Intent, in Jacobinical Times. The hero of the narrative is “Good-Intent” and according to the book’s introduction he is the great, great grandson of John Bunyan’s hero, “Christian”. The book went through seven editions in English, two in Ireland and three in America by 1802. This established Burges as a professional and independent woman. She died in 1813 at her house in Ashfield in 1813.

An introduction by her elder brother, Sir James Lamb, 1st Baronet, to a later edition of her book revealed the identity of the book’s author. In 1814 the book was reissued with John Bowdler for another edition.

Witnessing his cousin marry for love and not money, as he felt destined to do, Colonel Fitzwilliam refused to himself to be jealous. He did not expect his acquaintance with the Bennet Clan to change that.

Catherine Bennet, often called Kitty, had not given a great deal of thought to how her life might change with her sisters Elizabeth and Jane becoming wed to rich and connected men. Certainly meeting Darcy’s handsome cousin, a Colonel, did not affect her.

But one had to admit that the connections of the Bingleys and Darcys were quite advantageous. All sorts of men desired introductions now that she had such wealthy new brothers.

Kitty knew that Lydia may have thought herself fortunate when she had married Wickham, the first Bennet daughter to wed. Kitty, though, knew that true fortune had come to her. She just wasn’t sure how best to apply herself.

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Sir William Russell 1st Baronet of Charlton Park was a Scottish physician.

Born at Edinburgh on 29 May 1773, he was sixth son of John Russell of Roseburne, near Edinburgh, a writer to the signet, and uncle to Daniel Eliott. After taking the degree of M.D. at Edinburgh, he went to Calcutta. where he acquired a large medical practice.

Russell retired on 18 June 1831. In London for the cholera epidemic, he was created a baronet on 18 February 1832 for his medical services, and in April was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died on 26 September 1839 at Charlton Park, Gloucestershire.

Sir William Russell, 2nd Baronet (1822–1892), British Army officer, was his son.